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Thought it was long overdue to post a little bit about my bike as this forum has completely influenced its build.

My last bike was a Tarmac SL4 expert, which I bought as a top all round fast and stiff bike. The bug bit and I tried and tried to lighten it up, but when you're working with a boat anchor there's only so much you can do...

Early last year I bought a 2015 Supersix Evo Hi-Mod frame new for only £750, as the 2016 Evo with BB30a and 25.4 seatpost (both features I didn't want) had just come out. It was less than half the price of the 2015 Nano, which came with the Sisl2, which I didn't really want as I had an S-Works crankset. Even heard some say the Nano is the same bike, just with minimalist matt black paint.

I built it up with some nice stuff, trying to pick up deals as I went. Here's a picture of it last summer on a river crossing, weighing about 5 5kg. FYI, I'm about 6'3", and the frame is an XL (58cm).

By winter I had it built to just under 5.3kg after a few more acquisitions. I've decided to keep with clinchers for the time being. The wheels are Syncros RR1.0 which are about 1400g. I know I could go shallower on the rims, but I do think weight is decent for 46mm deep clinchers, they are pretty stiff under my 80kg. I have Ultralite pedals on the bike which I bought for peanuts and repaired, although am yet to use them regularly.

Still not satisfied, I've decided to remove the paint. The number of logos and list of gimmicky names for their technology is a bit busy for me. Having seen the great work Nifty and Godzuki did with their/wife's bikes, I'm aiming to save some weight and improve the frame's appearance similarly. Hopefully as my bike isn't black, and seems to have thick glossy paint I'll shed some decent weight!

Others who I've spoken to about stripping back to carbon (the wife for example), have been pretty against the idea, so it'd be great to hear from you guys as I update the build and then reassemble the bike. Will try to get some scale shots before the parts go on and am happy to give some opinions, as I've found this really useful in the past. Aim is to go sub 5kg.

Steve

Last edited by 4ibanez on Tue Feb 13, 2018 12:18 pm, edited 18 times in total.

jbaillie wrote:How much did you save with the THM crank arms over the S-Works?

The weight difference was about 80g with the THM cranks over S-Works (having sanded 5-10g of clear and paint of the latter).

THM's PF30 BB is heavier, as it essentially widens the BB from 68mm to 87mm and has a sleeve running through the shell. This should make the setup stiffer and alignment should be bang on, but it came at a 20g weight penalty. Therfore, net gain was only 60g all things considered.

Anyway, my opening post was a bit overdue as I started sanding the forks last week. This bike is still probably a long way from finished but here's the fork... Started at 337g, cut to 314g (slammed) + 8g crown race.

Before:

After:

20g weight saving on the forks isn't bad at all. The dropouts and lawyer tabs were a massive ballache, but I persevered! Hoping for over 100g weight saving on the frame!

Last edited by 4ibanez on Fri May 05, 2017 12:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

That's the AX Lightness Rigid in -17° (120mm). When Axel was still there, I emailed him and he gave me €100 off the list price for mentioning I was a weight weenies poster. Don't think you'd get such a deal anymore!

Last edited by 4ibanez on Tue Apr 11, 2017 7:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

I first saw people had done it on the "show us your tuning" thread. Thought it was a great idea and the hole punch only cost £2.50 off ebay. Am going to use it on a belt as well as I seem to have lost a little weight myself!Although it's only a few grams, the hoods are much more flexible and install should be easier so it's a win win. I may even be able to uninstall the hoods in future without taking the shifters and bartape off.